TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki hit out at the international community for not doing more in the face of Israel's deadly blitz on Gaza on Friday and demanded an immediate halt to the assault. "We are calling for an immediate ceasefire, a halt to the attacks and aid for the population of Gaza as well as an end to the (Israeli) blockade of the Palestinian territory and the opening up of all the borders, particularly the ports," Mottaki said in a sermon at the Juma prayers here. Mottaki accused the Israeli navy of behaving like "a bunch of Somali pirates" after a patrol boat collided with an aid boat carrying medicines and international activists trying on Tuesday to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. He said the Gazans were justified in their belief that some Arab countries had "betrayed" them. Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called on Muslims to provide political, financial and military help to the Hamas fighters. "The Muslim community should give political, cultural, financial and armed support to the population of Gaza to enable it to resist," he said at Juma prayers. Several thousand namazis later marched through central Tehran to protest against the Israeli blitz, chanting "Death to Israel," "Death to America." Similar protests were held in other Iranian cities, state television reported. Meanwhile, Iraqi Imams speaking at Friday prayers slammed Israel's deadly airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and urged international leaders to try to make the Jewish state call a halt to the blitz. "We ask the international community to use all means to put pressure on the Zionist regime to stop the savage attacks," Iraq's supreme Shia religious authority Ali Husseini al-Sistani told faithful. "We ask the humanitarian organisations to support Gazans by providing them with the needed aid," Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai said during Juma prayers in Karbala, as both Shia and Sunni clerics denounced the raids. Israel's onslaught was branded "shameless aggression" by Moqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand anti-US Shia Imam and head of the powerful Sadr movement. He also asked Iraqis to come forward with medical and food donations. After the prayer meeting, namazis burned the Israeli flag and chanted: "No, No, to Israel," and "No No, to America." "Gaza is now witnessing genocide and a real Holocaust," Imam Sheikh Muhammad al-Jaburi told Juma congregation in Mosul.